New Delhi: In a major shift in policy that may make mobile telecom services costly, Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal today said henceforth all operators would have to pay market price for initial as well additional spectrum.
Delinking spectrum from the licences in the aftermath of the 2G scam, Sibal said, "In future, the spectrum will not be bundled with licence. The licence to be issued to telecom operators will be in the nature of 'Unified Licence' and the licence holder will be free to offer any of the multifarious telecom services.
"In the event, the licence holder would like to offer wireless services, it will have to obtain spectrum through a market driven process," he told a press conference.
As of now the telecom operators were getting spectrum bundled with the telecom licenses which had paved the way for low tariff regime and intense price war among the service providers.
But now, the new operators, if their licences are held valid, would have to pay a market price for the additional 1.8 Mhz of 2G spectrum and this may make their operations financially unviable.
For the old operators like Bharti, Vodafone and Idea, who are holding spectrum beyond 6.2 Mhz, they would have to pay market driven price for the extra airwaves.
These changes would be implemented with immediate effect, Sibal said.
One of the new operators, when contacted, said that the new regime has given a major advantage to the old operators by allowing them to retain 6.2 Mhz of spectrum while the new operators would be at loss as they have to pay market price for the additional 1.8 Mhz spectrum.
At a time when the new operators are struggling to get new subscribers, additional cost on them would hit them hard.
"We need to seriously consider the adoption of an auction process for allocation and pricing of spectrum beyond 6.2 Mhz while ensuring that there is adequate competition in the auction process," Sibal told reporters here.